“Hist!” he said below his breath.  “Methought I heard a cry.”

Raymond stopped short and listened, too.  Yes; there was certainly some tumult going on a little distance ahead of them.  The brothers distinguished the sound of human voices raised in shrill piercing cries, and with that sound was mingled the fierce baying note that they had heard too often in their lives to mistake at any time.

“It is some traveller attacked by wolves!” cried the brothers in a breath, and without a single thought of their own peril the gallant boys tore headlong through the dark wood to the spot whence the tumult proceeded.

Guided by the sound of shouts, cries, and the howling of the beasts, the brothers were not long in nearing the scene of the strife.

“Shout aloud!” cried Gaston to his brother as they ran.  “Make the cowardly brutes believe that a company is advancing against them.  It is the best, the only chance.  They will turn and fly if they think there be many against them.”

Raymond was not slow to act upon this hint.  The next moment the wood rang again to the shouts and calls of the brothers, voice answering to voice till it seemed as though a score of men were approaching.  The brothers, moreover, knew and used the sharp fierce call employed by the hunters of the wolves in summoning their dogs to their aid —­ a call that they knew would be heard and heeded by the savage brutes, who would well know what it meant.  And in effect the artifice was perfectly successful; for ere they had gained the spot upon which the struggle had taken place, they heard the breaking up of the wolf party, as the frightened beasts dashed headlong through the coverts, whilst their howling and barking died away in the distance, and a great silence succeeded.

“Thank Heaven for a timely rescue!” they heard a voice say in the English tongue; “for by my troth, good Malcolm, I had thought that thou and I would not live to tell this tale to others.  But where are our good friends and rescuers?  Verily, I have seen nothing, yet there must have been a good dozen or more.  Light thy lantern, an thou canst, and let us look well round us, for by the mass I shall soon think we have been helped by the spirits of the forest.”

“Nay, fair sir, but only by two travellers,” said Gaston, advancing from the shadow of the giant trees, his brother closely following him.  “We are ourselves benighted in this forest, having by some mischance lost our road to Castres, which we hoped to have sighted ere now.  Hearing the struggle, and the shouts with which you doubtless tried to scare off the brutes, we came to see if we might not aid, and being well acquainted with the calls of the hunters of the wolves, succeeded beyond our hopes.  I trust the cowardly and treacherous beasts have done you no injury?”

“By my troth, it is strange to hear my native tongue in these parts, and so fairly spoken withal.  I trust we are not bewitched, or the sport of spirits.  Who art thou, brave boy? and whence comest thou?  How comes it that thou, being, as it seems, a native of these parts, speakest so well a strange language?”